Number 5. Anthony D. McClanahan
Anthony D. McClanahan spent 3 years at Washington State University, playing as a linebacker during
the early 1990s, before being drafted by the Dallas Cowboys, an NFL team for which he never
made an official appearance. McClanahan did go on to spend 4 years in the Canadian Football League,
as a starter for the Calgary Stampeders. In the early morning of November the 2nd of 2017,
McClanahan was found by police officers in Park City, a small city in Utah,
known for its many ski resorts. On that morning, McClanahan was crawling outside,
on his stomach, while covered in blood. He managed to flag down 2 police officers,
who initially believed he had been the victim of a violent crime. That’s also the version of
events that McClanahan went with, as he told the officers that he, along with his wife and baby,
had been attacked. McClanahan’s injuries turned out to be somewhat minor and his problems started
when police did not find any evidence to back up his story of having been attacked. What they did
find was his wife’s body in the condominium that McClanahan had been renting. A month prior to the
grisly discovery, McClanahan had been arrested on charges of kidnapping his 8-year-old son,
from a previous relationship, then travelling with him for 9 days before returning him and
bonding himself out of jail a few days later. McClanahan’s wife, Keri McClanahan, had already
been planning on leaving McClanahan on account of him physically abusing her, a decision that was
reinforced by the man’s antics in October. Despite that, she had decided to try and help him get back
on his feet first. It was a course of action that ultimately cost the woman her life. A jealous and
bitter McClanahan ended up stabbing her to death in his apartment, enraged by Keri’s plan of
leaving him. His attempts to plead his innocence or reduce guilt, by pointing to other attackers,
faking a seizure and faking memory loss from having played professional football,
all failed. In 2019, he finally admitted his guilt and was sentenced to life in prison.
Number 4. Bruno Fernandes
In 2013, Bruno Fernandes was sentenced to 22 years in prison for the 2010 murder of his former
mistress and the mother of his son, Eliza Samudio. The Brazilian goalkeeper, not to be confused with
current Manchester United superstar midfielder Bruno Fernandes, had played for high profile
Brazilian club Flamengo, between 2006 and 2010. During this time, he managed to win the national
club championship, in 2009. A year later, on June the 9th, during his last season with the club, his
former mistress disappeared, shortly after having given birth to a son that she alleged was his,
which Fernandes denied. Eliza Samudio went missing almost 8 months, after she filed a police report
against Fernandes and his longtime friend Luiz Romao, nicknamed “Spaghetti”. In that report
she accused Fernandes, Spaghetti and more of their friends of having kidnapped her and forced her to
take medication to induce an abortion. They also allegedly beat her and Fernandes was said to have
pointed a gun at her head. When the forensic examination of the investigation was released,
in August of 2010, it was already too late. Samudio had disappeared at least 2 months prior.
Investigations into that missing person case later found that Samudio had been lured into a trap.
She and Fernandes had agreed to meet and discuss arrangements for child support but,
instead, she was picked up by Spaghetti and a cousin of Fernandes, who beat her up and
kidnapped her. The cousin went on to confess that the victim was then handed off to Marcos
Aparecido, a former policeman hired by Spaghetti to handle her killing. He did as instructed and
Samudio’s body was never recovered. In 2013, Fernandes was found guilty of assassinating,
kidnapping and concealing the body of the 25-year-old woman and was sentenced to 22
years in prison. Subsequent events would unfold with remarkable leeway in how the
soccer player served his punishment. In 2019, after having served less than half his sentence,
Fernandes was released from prison to serve the remainder of his sentence
under house arrest. The term “house arrest” was loosely applied as Fernandes has since appeared
in 13 games for Rio Branco, a team that plays in a lower, semi-professional Brazilian league.
Number 3. Hope Solo
Goalkeeper Hope Solo was one of America’s most famous and high profile soccer stars, frequently
ranked among the best American athletes overall, when she got arrested in the early morning of
June the 24th of 2014. It was a turbulent arrest, because an allegedly-drunk Solo resisted police
officers who were trying to take her into custody, calling one of them a “bitch”. She was also
reported to have said “You're scared of me because you know that if the handcuffs were off, I'd kick
your ass" Terasa Robert, Solo’s half-sister and Robert’s son were the alleged victims in the
domestic violence case against Solo. Initially, it had been Robert’s plan to convince prosecutors
not to pursue charges. However, when Solo came out of jail and, in an interview, accused Robert’s
17 year old son of being the aggressor, she changed her mind and wanted justice. According to
her version of events, a drunk Solo had showed up at their house and had gotten worse over the next
few hours before physically attacking her son. The son managed to restrain Solo and Robert told him
to let go, which he did. Afterwards, Solo resumed her attack on the teenager,
jumped on top of him and started bashing his head into the cement floor inside their garage.
When Robert came from behind to help her son, she managed to get Solo off, but the athlete
then turned on her and started punching her in the face repeatedly. Solo appeared in court
several times until, after several delays, in 2018 both cases of domestic violence were eventually
dismissed. It was because the half-sister and her son decided they didn’t want to be witnesses
in the case anymore due to the toll that the case had taken on them throughout the years.
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Number 2. Tonya Harding
On January 6th of 1994, American figure skater Nancy Kerrigan had just completed a practice
session at the Detroit Coba Arena. She was hanging out in the corridors of the arena when,
out of nowhere, she was hit on her leg with a 21-inch collapsible baton,
the other end of which was held by Shane Stant. 8 days after the attack, which had been meant
to destroy Kerrigan’s knee caps, Stant turned himself in and confessed to his crime. The attack
later turned out to have been orchestrated by the ex-husband of Kerrigan’s longtime rival
Tonya Harding. Just before Christmas, a few weeks earlier, Stant had had a meeting with
Jeff Gillooly, Harding’s ex-husband, and Shawn Eckhardt, Harding’s bodyguard. In that meeting
Gillooly and Eckhardt offered Stant $6,500 to “knee-cap” Kerrigan, to which he agreed. Even
though the attack took place right before the American figure skating championships,
the end-goal of it was to prevent Kerrigan from competing in the 1994 winter Olympics. Kerrigan,
who was hurt, bruised and battered, had to withdraw from the national championship,
but recovered quickly enough to partake in the 1994 Olympics. She managed to secure 2nd place,
with Harding finishing in 8th place. Later on, Harding was directly linked to the attack and,
in the aftermath, was stripped of her 1994 national championship title and banned for
life. Stant was sentenced to 18 months in prison. His uncle, Derrick Smith, who had connected him
with Gillooly and Eckardt while also acting as the getaway driver, was, like his nephew,
sentenced to 18 months. Jeff Gillooly was sentenced to 2 years, after confessing,
and Shawn Eckardt was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Harding herself worked out a deal with
prosecutors that allowed her to plead guilty to lesser charges than having co-orchestrated the
attack, which she’d been suspected of doing. She got three years of probation, a $100,000 fine,
and 500 hours of community service. Her legal troubles were not completely over just yet. In the
years after her guilty plea, Harding was arrested twice more for driving under the influence.
Number 1. Clayton Whittemore
In 2010, Clayton Whittemore helped his New Hartford High School’s Spartans capture a
second straight Division II state championship. Shortly after clinching the division, Whittemore
was even honored by the New York State High School Hockey Coaches Association as the state’s
Division II Player of the Year. He was considered a promising hockey star and his future was looking
bright. A mere 2 years later, Whittemore found himself in prison. He was accused of the murder
of his 18-year-old girlfriend Alexandra Kogut, who had been found dead in her dorm room at SUNY
Brockport, a few hours earlier, on September the 29th of 2012. Alexandra, like Whittemore,
had been a promising young athlete, captaining her local swim team. When he was arrested, at
a Thruway rest stop near Syracuse, Whittemore was 21 years old and playing hockey for Utica College.
Kogut had been found with extensive trauma to the upper body. Whittemore initially denied the second
degree murder charge and having anything to do with her death at all. He was soon forced to
change his story due to the overwhelming evidence against him. On the night that she was murdered,
Kogut had tweeted about how excited she was to see Whittemore again. Her words started to have an
ominous connotation, as in a subsequent tweet she wrote “should have known”. An apparently ordinary
argument about “stupid stuff” between the pair soon turned violent and the two started shoving
each other, according to Whittemore’s version of events. In court he declared that she kept
pushing him, at which point he snapped and kept hitting her with his fists “over and over
again”. He then testified that her breathing became irregular and she was starting to make
gurgling sounds. Whittemore decided he did not want the girl he loved to suffer and he grabbed
a curling iron which he used to end her life. In an attempt to get the murder charge downgraded
to a manslaughter charge, Whittemore claimed that he had been physically and emotionally abused by
his father, growing up, something to which his sister testified. The jury would not be swayed,
especially after it became clear that he’d been aggressive with some of his exes too. It took the
jury under 2 hours to arrive at a guilty verdict and Whittemore was sentenced to 25 to life.
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